A Cherry Blossom's Time
by Kittykeeper
Summary: All things must past, the good and the bad. Sometimes we just need a little help to realize it. ItaSaku... eventually. Second Fic. Progress will be effected by # of reviews / votes. Review! Crit. are excepted! I just want to improve!
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**.

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**Prologue **

_There was a time when the cold, emotionless face of the pink haired kuonichi Sakura Haruno was lit up with emotions. Joy, happiness, sadness and pain; all had seen their share of time, vividly expressed by her facial features. There was a time when her soulless and hallow emerald eyes had once glimmered with hope and life. There was a time when she could trust, love, and be loved without fear. _

Sakura Haruno wiped her brow, frowning that she was showing signs of exhaustion from her almost unceasing work after treating her one hundred and fifty-seventh patient in a row. She had been up for about eighty-six hours, twelve past her record. She still didn't want to go back to her house to crash and fall into a fitful sleep for only a few hours.

_There was a time when she could sleep without the nightmares, the faces, the guilt. There was a time when she counted her self as living, rather than just existing. There was a time when she could let her mind wander, instead of having to bury herself in work and icy barriers._

Sakura paused for a mere fraction of a second while reading the conditions of her next patient, glancing up. She immediately wished she didn't have this patient, this room. It was the room Sasuke had occupied after being beat by his brother. It was the room of her parent's deaths. It was the room where she almost lost Naruto, Shizune and Tsunade.

_There was a time when everything around her radiated happiness. When she could see the good in things. Instead, now, she remembered their dying breaths, their fear stricken faces, their pain etched into their bodies, both physical and mental. There was a time when she believed all things turned out good, and she believed in happy endings. There was a time, there was a time. Well now the time has come for our little cherry blossom to wake from the dead of winter and show the world how strong, and beautiful, it can truly be once more._

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**P.S. Could you send me votes in reviews to wether or not I should work on this story or one of my other(s)?**


	2. Chapter 1: A Time For A Reunion

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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**Chapter 1**

Sakura let out a shaky breath that she didn't know she had been holding as she finally left the room. She looked over her clipboard, making sure she hadn't skipped any patients before heading to the lobby. She glanced up at the clock, hanging above the reception desk. Slipping her clipboard onto the desk a quietly as possible she reached for another, only to be stopped by a rather angry and frustrated voice.

"Sakura! What are you doing here this late?! You promised me you'd stop working like you do!" A blonde headed woman appeared from around the corner, her two blonde bangs framing her irate face.

"My apologizes Tsunade-sama. I could not sleep so I decided to not waste time and instead put it to good use." Sakura replied to the woman called Tsunade in a monotone voice.

"That's it! You are hereby not allowed to step on hospital grounds for a week unless it's an emergency!" Tsunade did her best to not yell, she had a rather large headache from a hangover.

"You can't do that. You need me here. Without me the hospital would be overflowing with untreated patients." Sakura tried using the voice of reason.

"I can and I will! If me and Shizune have to take your insane amount of work for a week, or more, we'll do it!" Tsunade's eyes glimmered dangerously. Sakura gave a resigned sigh. There was no way that she could worm her way out of this one.

"Very well. I'll be back in a week, or when you feel I should come back." Sakura replied calmly. Tsunade gave a curt nod.

"Good. Now go home and get some sleep!" Sakura ignored the last comment, quickly grabbing her light coat and medical kit, and burst out the doors of the hospital complex. Sleep was the last thing on her mind at the moment.

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The pink haired kuonichi sat a desk overflowing with papers and manuscripts, scowling softly as she re-read them over for the sixty-third time, finally able to record them to her memory. Quickly she made a few hand seals and with a 'poof!' the papers disappeared. Creating a few more hand seals and more papers filled her desk, except that these were neat and orderly, not to mention blank. Sighing, she immediately found her pencil and pen lying on the floor beside her chair. She hastily picked them up and began writing.

"No, no, no… that won't do. However if…" The young woman muttered to herself as she peered over the paper in her hands, not noticing a black cat with icy blue eyes padding up behind her. The cat gracefully leapt up onto the desk and put a paw on the kuonichi's right arm.

"Sakura. You should stop now. It's almost 6 am! I have a message from Tsunada-sama. She said to meet her at the north gate, Team 7 will be there also." Sakura looked up and noticed the rays of light pouring in through the window.

"Thank you Shadow. I failed to keep to keep track of time." Sakura's voice was emotionless and bland.

"As you always do." Sakura ignored the snide remark.

"Is it a mission?" Sakura asked, redoing her hand seals from before and the mass of documents on her desk disappeared.

"She didn't say." Shadow followed Sakura to the window.

"Hn. Very well." Sakura slid open the window, her delicate fingers making quick work of the lock and easily prying it open. In a flash she was gone, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, finally stopping at the north gate.

"…Sakura is going to freak when she finds out!" The unmistakable voice of Naruto rang out from below.

"If she does, she won't let any of it show that's for sure." Sakura recognized Sai's voice.

"Yes, well it depends on if she shows up." Kakashi's voice drifted lazily.

"Hn. Who cares if that weak girl shows up?" Sakura froze at the voice. It had been years since she heard it. 7 years to be exact. Sasuke's words finally registered in her mind. Weak. He had called her weak. Though her body remained as passive as ever, inside her anger began to swirl to life. _'Weak… we'll see whose weak Uchiha. You, in a way, made me what I am today: emotionless, and seemingly dead, no heart or soul to speak of. But you, along with the countless other's made me stronger. Much, much stronger. Stronger than you'll ever be.'_

It was quite true. She had easily surpassed Tsunada's insane strength and her medical capabilities and was the top medic in the entire world, though she never let her true skills out. She worried that all the fame would hinder her training time, and the work she did in the hospital. She had taken taijutsu lessons from Gai and Lee, passing them in equal amount of time. She had maintained literally perfect chakra control with the help of Neji and Hinata including learning chakra points and other pressure points in the body. Not to mention all the jutsu they had taught her. But it wasn't enough. No, it was never enough.

Now that they could no longer teach her she taught herself, learning every jutsu she could get her hands on, and perfecting the ones she had already learned. She even snuck in to the Hokage's Tower and managed to learn all the forbidden jutsu. After perfecting each and every one of them it still wasn't enough. So she spent her free time and countless sleepless nights creating and perfecting brand new jutsus and techniques. She even designed and created her own clothes, renforcing and enhancing them to make her stronger. She was the best kuonichi, medic nin, and shinobi there was. But it was never enough. And now to be called weak by some lowly traitor scum who helped tear her apart almost snapped the last straw that held her together. Almost.

But after years of insults she simply ignored them, realizing she was only acting out of anger because she was afraid. Not afraid of them spreading bad rumors about her or anything like that. No, she was afraid of herself, because she began to realize that whenever someone made a snide comment or a joke at her expense she didn't really feel hurt. In fact she didn't feel anything. A few weeks later, she had realized she had lost touch with her emotions and deep inside she really didn't care. From there on out she had become the definition of the perfect shinobi as of in the dictionary. An emotionless, living killing machine; at least on the outside. There were the rare occasions where she would feel an emotion on the inside such as now, but it quickly dissipated into the usual nothingness.

Sakura stepped out of the shadows of the rooftop she was on and called out,

"I would rather have you tell me those comments to my face, rather then have them said behind my back." Her hollow eyes gliding over each one of them. Without a thought she stepped off the five-story building she was on and landing perfectly, walking over to her comrades Sai, Naruto and Kakashi.

"Sakura! What an… erm… pleasant surprise! You see we really complimenting you and all! You just took it wrong…!" Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly, a fearful grin and pleading eyes glued on his face.

"I don't care if you insult me or compliment me. What I do care about is being called out of my house while I was working for no good reason." Sakura eyed her teammates coldly. Sai frowned. She was still working?

"I thought you weren't allowed back into the hospital until Tsunade said so. I heard you stayed there past your seventy four hour record."

"Work I guess isn't the right word to describe it. Yes, I am prohibited from entering the hospital until Tsunade-sama says so. Though I don't know why. There isn't a law that says we must sleep or that working for eighty six hours straight is a crime."

"So what were you doing?" Sai asked skeptically.

"I guess you would call it training." Sai raised one of his eyebrows.

"What sort of training?" He was one of the few who knew that sometimes her training included experiments of sorts. Some, even the most hazardous of them, she tested on herself.

"I'm sorry but that is personal. However it isn't the training you were thinking of." Sai relaxed slightly, glad that she wasn't experimenting on herself like before. Naruto sighed, annoyed by Sakura's attitude. She had once told him that she loved Sasuke, which had crushed his heart back then, and now she was ignoring him!

"Sakura! Sasuke-teme is back!" Naruto waved his hands frantically in front of her face, trying to get some sort of reaction out of her.

"I observed that already. And…?" Sasuke smirked. He was sure she was just bluffing… yep… any second now she would be balling her eyes out on his chest and hugging him and telling him how much she missed him and loved him. He couldn't be farther from the truth. Naruto growled.

"He's finally back after seven long years and that's all you can say?! I believe that you told me once that you loved him! Is 'and' all you can say? He saved your life countless of times!"

"Yes, I loved him once. I was a fool to do so, like a the dog that follows it's owner off a cliff. But loved is past tense. And yes, he may have saved my life in the past, but it would have been better to let me die then. Furthermore he is a traitor to this village, why should I be relieved at his return?" Sakura was becoming a little annoyed; she didn't like to speak in long answers. She had become like Sasuke in which she replied with one or two worded answers, or grunts. Naruto was becoming irate.

"Are you saying you feel nothing for him? For you own life for that matter? Are you saying you wish you had died in the past? If so why don't you just go and kill yourself?!" Naruto's eyes glinted with unshed angry tears of sorrow and hate.

"I feel nothing at all. Joy, happiness, and sorrow mean nothing. They have no place in my life. I can't even remember what it was like to feel them. At this point in time, I do not live. I only exist. It is a pain that you could never understand, even with your past Naruto. I have no wish to end my own life, but I would if presented with the option of life or death I would probably choose the later." Sakura's emotionless answer was the last straw for Naruto.

"How can you say that? I thought I knew you! I dared to think of you as a friend. I'm glad I choose Hinata over you!"

"I can say things like that because they are true. You never really have known me Naruto, nor have I ever valued you as a friend. I have only one friend that really understands me that I can trust. And she's more of an accomplice than a friend. And frankly, I'm glad you choose Hinata over myself. She loves you more than you love your ramen." By now Sasuke was starting to realize Sakura wasn't kidding, and it was breaking him up inside.

"Sakura… what has happened to you?" Sasuke's voice was barely above a hoarse whisper.

"Many things Uchiha. Things that you will have to pry from other's mouths if you wish to know." Kakashi and Sai were starting to grow worried about the altercation that was growing between the three but refrained from entering it, knowing they could make no difference in its outcome. There was only two people who could stop it and thankfully both were on their way.

Naruto was past seething, and being irate. He wasn't going to play nice any more.

"No wonder why your parents died. You let them. You never cared!" Kakashi and Sai winced at the remark, expecting it to be a harsh blow. Sasuke's eyes widened in shock at the new information.

"Hn. Believe what you will." Sakura replied indifferently.

"Your parents died? So what. You should learn to move on. If it helps… I'll even help you avenge their deaths." Sasuke pleaded, not wanting see Sakura like this.

"Why should you care Uchiha? Even I don't care. And you don't want to help avenge their deaths, after all you were the one that dealt the mortal wounds to them." Sasuke had, had enough. He was becoming angry.

"I care because I don't want people to become the person I was before. And if I managed to kill your parents, then they must have been pretty weak." Naruto's eyes darted back and force between Sakura and Sasuke. It wasn't the reunion he had been hoping for. He had hoped it would have been happier, and that Sakura would have been able to heal due to it. He realized now that she was incapable of healing.

"It's too late to stop me from becoming what I already am. I will have to agree with you that they were weak." At those words a shadow detached itself from the wall, two pale icy eyes gleamed at Sakura.

"You shouldn't mock the dead, Sakura. Especially since they were your parents." The shadow took the form a large cat.

"Shadow." Sakura gave a nod of recognition to the shadow-cat.

"What would they think if they saw you know? Hm?" Shadow continued to pester Sakura.

"I don't know. Neither do I care." Sasuke gritted his teeth. She didn't care about her own parents, or her life, or for anything? She had become worse than he was in his past.

"I don't know what you think or what you believe, but do not dare insult the ones that had cared so much about you." Sasuke hissed out.

"ENOUGH! Both of you!" An irate voice yelled out from behind them. Everyone turned to look at the newcomer. Tsunade and Shizune walked up to them, and they parted, allowing them access to Sasuke. Sakura's eyes followed Tsunade's movements.

"Sasuke. You came back." Tsunade said, stating the obvious.

"Hai." He responded.

"You have helped us a great deal these past three years, infiltrating and acting as a spy on our behalf on Orochimaru and the Sound village. You were successful in assassinating Orochimaru and Kabuto I take it?" Everyone was shocked at this revelation. Everyone but Sakura of course. He had been acting on the village's behalf for the past three years! It was something they had never expected.

"Hai. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't." Sasuke replied, his voice returning to its normal coldness.

"Very well. Sasuke Uchiha, you are hereby reinstated into Konoha, the village hidden in the leaves. I must apologize as there isn't a team with an available spot at the moment –" Tsunade was cut off by Sakura.

"He may take my spot on Team 7." Tsunade blinked, slightly put off by the offer.

"May I ask why?" Tsunade inquired.

"I am… distanced from the rest of the team. I feel Sasuke won't be as distanced from the team and will be a member." Sakura choose her words carefully. After a few seconds of deliberation Tsunade spoke.

"Very well. Sakura Haruno, you are hereby being replaced on Team 7 permanently by Sasuke Uchiha. You shall still train and go on missions with them until another suitable team is found."

"Hai!" Sasuke and Sakura both responded. With that Tsunade, and faithful Shizune in tow, proceeded back to the Hokage Tower. Naruto was brimming with joy. _'Sasuke is back on the team!'_ He mentally shouted. He didn't mind Sakura on the team, but she had a habit of giving everyone the cold shoulder.

"Lets all go get some ramen!" He said enthusiastically. Sasuke gave a small smile.

"Alright Dobe." He responded.

"Sakura you coming?" He asked Sakura, as she didn't follow Kakashi, Sai, Naruto and Sasuke.

"No. I have more training to do." She replied, and in a cascade of sakura petals both Shadow and her were gone. Naruto just shrugged and continued to go the ramen stall, the other's following not far behind. Little did they know training wasn't the only thing she'd be doing.


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